Cain's Fed Colleagues Saw Potential Way Back When

Some of the people who encountered Herman Cain when he was involved with the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank decades saw leadership potential beyond that and his accomplishments at the helm of Godfather’s Pizza and roles in other companies.

Indeed, Bill McQuillian recalled during an interview with Politico how he met Cain two decades ago on a flight from Omaha to Kansas City for a meeting of the Kansas City Fed Board. Cain was on the board of the Omaha branch of the Kansas City Fed from 1989 to 1991 and was a member of the KC Fed’s nine-member board for two years as deputy director before chairing the full board in 1995 and 1996.

Shortly after meeting Cain, McQuillian was so impressed with the Godfather’s CEO that he suggested that he consider running for president.

“He looked at me and said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ” McQuillian recalled during an interview with Politico. “And 15 or 20 years later, here he is.”
Although Cain now is pulling strong numbers and some polls make him the front-runner, his Fed chairmanship role at the time “offers little insight into Cain’s opaque policy views,” partly because the post is largely honorary, Politico notes. But the news service adds that “interviews with half a dozen of his peers at the Fed reveal a man who impressed his fellow regional power brokers, and one whom many still view — despite Beltway incredulity — as a plausible president.”

His Fed colleagues liked him and considered him a charismatic leader, Politico reports.

“Right away I liked him,” Nebraska banker McQuillian told Politico. “He had a positive personality — very outgoing, very engaging guy, just impressive.”

McQuillian said Cain was not overly aggressive, but “at the end of the day, I kind of knew who was in charge.”

Similarly, said Jerry Shreeves, a senior vice president at the Kansas City Fed during that time who attended board meetings with Cain, told Politico: “He had a very take-charge sort of style, but one who looks for agreement among others. He didn’t drive things down anybody’s throat – I thought he was good at bringing people together.”

Cain schooled himself about Fed policy and always asked tough questions, his former colleagues there said.
“Everybody liked Herman because his personality was so open and friendly and not abrasive,” Barry Robinson, a public affairs officer at the Kansas City Fed who remembered Cain from board meetings, told Politico.